… last of the snow and ice for a while, I reckon.

The temperature has warmed up, the wind has risen and round about 118:00 this evening we had a torrential downpour. That will wash away the last of the snow and ice that’s been lingering around. Unless the temperature drops substantially and the rain turns into snow.

Talking of lingering … “well, one of us is” – ed … I didn’t linger around very long in bed this morning, just for a change on a Sunday. In fact by 09:30 I was up and wandering around looking for my medication. That’s not something that happens every Sunday.

Listening to the dictaphone, I could hear that I’d been on my travels during the night. I was with a friend and some kind of taxi driver person yesterday. My friend had wanted something doing and I had organised some help for him, this Pakistani person whoever it was was the right kind of person so I got the 2 people to meet. My friend and I had a very long chat about all kinds of things, the past, the future, all of that kind of thing. Then I had to go home. Round about, I dunno, it was dark in the evening. I had no socks on and I had to walk to my locker which was somewhere in Shavington in order to get them without any socks. I said goodbye to him and checked the dates for when we’d be meeting again and waved goodbye to this Pakistani guy and set off to walk. I walked back down Crewe Road towards Sugar Loaf Corner and I could hear in the distance the sounds of one of my sisters or brother being beaten for something or other for some act of misbehaviour. I could hear the kid shouting acts of defiance while this beating was going on. It seemed to far away yet seemed so near. I was the only person out there in the street just in my bare feet walking down the street. There was no-one else around at all.

First task was to book my voyages and hotel accommodation for Leuven. And luckily it seems that all of the trains are back up and running normally again. The price that they wanted from me too made it a very worthwhile occupation this morning.

Plenty of room in my little hotel too so it all worked out very well. It seems to have been a very good idea to change my day to a Thursday. The only downside is that I’m having to travel up on the Wednesday which is my birthday, so happy birthday to me, hey?

While I was there I had a little shuffle around of my money. With not going off on any holidays just now, the money that I had set aside was sitting there not doing very much.

Next task was to book an appointment with my Welsh tutor. We are all having a little one-on-one with her next week just for 15 minutes and I needed to reserve my little spec.

The rest of the morning was spent dealing with the photos from Greenland in July 2019. And one or two of them have really come out well too, like THIS ONE and THIS ONE.

After lunch I spent some time working on my Oradour sur Glane stuff. All of the notes are now finished and I’m starting to fit in the photos in the places where they ought to go. And that’s not easy either with 53 photos to go at.

At some point in the afternoon I went out for my usual afternoon walk.

At the end of the car park I looked over the wall down to the beach. There were several people down there on the beach wandering around this afternoon and, just like yesterday, I didn’t envy them one bit. The temperature has warmed up somewhat, but the wind has warmed up too and it’s blowing a gale right now.

The tide is of course way out, almost at its limit. It would be interesting to see how the sea would be behaving when the tide is right in. And I’m interested to know what those two tracks are down there on the beach.

From the car park I walked along the path at the back of the College Malraux and along the top of the cliffs.

Although it might not look like it, it wasn’t all that much later than usual. The clouds were quite dark and heavy, a promise of things to come, I reckon, with the strong westerly wind that was blowing. But there was that great big hole in the sky and with that lucky old sun having nothing to do but roll around heaven all day, the bright spot has now moved around a couple of degrees.

It’s now lighting up the Brittany coast, as much as we could see down there this afternoon with the rainstorm that’s falling down over there.

For a change, I’d taken with me the NIKON D500. I’d had a little play around with it this morning and managed to make the camera recognise the memory card that’s in it.

With having to use the NIKON 1 J5 which doesn’t have an eyepiece viewfinder, I’ve not been able to take any photos of the aeroplanes and other aircraft that have been flying overhead. And so I celebrated the occasion by taking a photo of an aeroplane that went flying by overhead at the Pointe du Roc.

Unfortunately I couldn’t quite read the serial number and there was nothing on the database having taken off from Granville airport this afternoon, so I’m not able to say exactly what it is. I shall have to do some further research.

Down at the end of the headland there wasn’t anything at all going on. Nothing out at sea and of course with the tide well out there would be no fishing boats coming home.

Down at the viewpoint overlooking the chantier navale I had a look down to see what was going on. There is no change in occupancy today – the four boats that we have seen for the last few days are still there not having done very much.

There’s no question as to why Aztec Lady and Lys Noir might be in there. With no business to attend to due to the postponement of all holiday activities, this is a good moment moment to have a full overhaul. But the big yacht has been there for months with no sign of moving.

Further on along the path I had a good look down to see what was happening in the port.

There are quite a few fishing boats there in the port this afternoon and of course our two Channel Island Ferries Granville, with Victor Hugo hiding away behind her, are still there too. No sign of them moving as long as the pandemic is still running wild, and as I’ve said before, unless Jersey puts its hands in its pockets, there’s a possibility that they might not run again.

Seeing as I was ready for my afternoon coffee, I headed home, and not running either because of the howling gale that was blowing up.

Having finished my days’ work, Next step was to prepare my food. having taken out a lump of pizza dough from the freezer earlier this morning. I kneaded it, rolled it out and put it in the pizza tray.

While it was busy proofing, I made myself a big apple crumble. That’s going to be my pudding for the next week. Lots of apple, with sultanas, desiccated coconut, cinnamon, nutmeg, brown sugar and lemon juice, all topped with a lovely crumble topping.

While that was busy baking, I prepared the pizza and when the crumble was baked I took it out and stuck the pizza in for the usual 30 minutes. And it was absolutely delicious, as usual. It’s becoming something of a production line thing now, these pizzas.

As for the apple crumble, I’ll have to tell you what that’s like tomorrow, because I’m rather full right now.

Having now typed out my notes, I’m going off to bed. I’m working on a radio programme tomorrow so I need to be on form. I’ve already crashed out once and I don’t want to do it again. I may as well go to bed and make a really goos start in the morning.

There’s plenty to do, as usual.

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